John C. Reilly is back again as half of a double act. Playing Oliver Hardy opposite Steve Coogan's Laurel he was recreating a partnership where the comedy personas were fluid and the pair took turns being the fall guy. As Ely Sisters, the nicer half of a Wild West outlaw pairing alongside his violent, heavy drinking younger brother Charlie (Phoenix), his role is fixed: he is always the stooge, and the butt of any misfortune.

After making his name in subtitles with films such as A Prophet and Rust And Bone, French director Audiard has struck out west to make a cowboy film set during the gold rush. Adapted from a novel by Alexander De Witt, it's centred on the brothers' search for a prospector (Ahmed) who claims to have a chemical formula for finding gold in rivers.

It is what was once called a revisionist western, debunking the heroic myths of the wild west but as there hasn't been a non-revisionist western since before The Duke, John Wayne, died I don't think that term has any traction now. Like most every western made in the last four decades, its themes are the brutal reality of those times, how callous the people were and the ignoble foundations on which the US was built. It is violent and has a jet black, but very funny, sense of humour. As such I think it can be described as a conventionally unconventional take on the western it is.

But on those terms, it works well enough. The story is agreeably winding, the subversions of expectations are effective and there are some strikingly effective visual. The acting is good, nothing we haven't seen them do before but these are exceptional performers so that's still top quality. I would though say there is a flaw in the film in that while all the supporting characters' dialogue seems believably period, made up of the knotty formality we have come to expect of frontier dialogue, the two brothers sound a little bit too modern day.